Some of France’s top chefs have signed a manifesto calling on the profession to speak openly about the problem of bullying in the kitchen. They say that for too long apprentice cooks have been victims of mental and sometimes physical abuse by their superiors.
The kitchen of a top-class restaurant is a place apart ruled with autocratic authority by the star chef. But too often it hides cruelty, bullying and physical violence. That’s the message in this manifesto which called on French cuisine to clean up its act. The idea came after an incident early this year at a three-star restaurant in Paris. Plenty of people have since come forward to complain of the treatment they received from despotic superiors. Many said it drove them from the profession. “It’s a very male, very young atmosphere”, said one food writer, “and more and more the famous chefs who should be in control in their kitchens are actually absent opening the way for bitter power struggles among their assistants”.
When a UN panel published a report earlier this year on human rights violations in North Korea, its conclusions were devastating. It said that the people there had suffered unspeakable atrocities and that those responsible including the leader Kim Jong-un must face justice. Now a UN resolution is calling on the Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the international criminal court for alleged crimes against humanity. Justice Michael Kirby headed the UN investigation.
When I sat there during the public hearings of the Commission of Inquiry, and I heard people tell of how their job was to pick up the bodies at the end of the day in the detention camps, put them in a wheel barrel, take them to a vat, burn them and then gather the ashes and the body parts, scatter it on the fields nearby.
So what is likely to happen now to this resolution?
What’s likely to happen now is that the resolution will go eventually before the UN Security Council where it is likely to bump up against a veto from Russia and China who voted against it in New York on Tuesday. And that would be a difficulty for it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised harsh action against Palestinian militants after scenes of violence in Jerusalem on a scale not seen for years.